Herman Melville

Herman Melville(1819-1891)At the age of 22 Melville took a sailing voyage to the South Seas on which he joined a mutiny and was sent to a Tahitian jail. The experiences he gained from the trip provided material for his first two novels, "Typee" and "Omoo."Melville went on to write about the sea. His epic, "Moby-Dick," features a protagonist, Captain Ahab, in obsessive pursuit of a great white whale. The book was first published in London and in America a month later. "Moby-Dick" gave Melville's reputation acclaim only many years after his death.

David Poyer is a retired naval officer, and most of the 34 thrillers that he's written draw on his experience serving in the waters of the Atlantic, Arctic, Pacific, Caribbean and Persian Gulf. So it was inevitable that at some point he'd take on the whale of all tales, "Moby Dick. " But try as Poyer might, he couldn't figure out how to write the sequel to Herman Melville's great American novel. Then one day, while the 63-year-old Poyer was teaching a creative writing course at Pennsylvania's Wilkes University, the solution came to him in a flash: "When I'm brainstorming with students, my brain doubles its IQ after a short period of time from my usually reptilian torpor at home," the 63-year-old Poyer said in a telephone interview.

"An odd act of literary liposuction" is how Daniel Zalewski describes in the December Lingua Franca what HarperCollins editor Hershel Parker performed on Herman Melville's arcane 1852 novel "Pierre, or The Ambiguities," which is coming soon to a mall near you.One 19th-century review was headlined "Herman Melville Crazy." HarperCollins decided the wordy novel needed to be made more accessible, leading to Mr. Parker's excision of an episode.The episode is the narrator's sudden, belated announcement, two-thirds of the way into the novel, that Pierre has a literary career, one that is, in Mr. Zalewski's words, "suspiciously similar to Melville's own."

Herman Melville(1819-1891)At the age of 22 Melville took a sailing voyage to the South Seas on which he joined a mutiny and was sent to a Tahitian jail. The experiences he gained from the trip provided material for his first two novels, "Typee" and "Omoo."Melville went on to write about the sea. His epic, "Moby-Dick," features a protagonist, Captain Ahab, in obsessive pursuit of a great white whale. The book was first published in London and in America a month later. "Moby-Dick" gave Melville's reputation acclaim only many years after his death.

By STANLEY TRACHTENBERG and STANLEY TRACHTENBERG,SPECIAL TO THE SUN | December 15, 1996

"Herman Melville: A Biography, Volume I, 1819-1851," by Hershel Parker. Johns Hopkins University Press. 941 pages. $39.95 Herman Melville is one of those major literary figures who is no longer read, only studied. The same fate seems likely to overtake Hershel Parker's monumental biography.Is there anything left to say about this difficult, obscure, ultimately philosophical writer who began with adventure tales of the South Seas (his editor called him "the Defoe of the ocean") and ended with such sardonic works as "The Confidence Man" '' or the moral ambiguity of "Billy Budd"?

A ratings tale: Ask not to whom the shares goTelevision ratings are a recurring theme in American literature.There was Herman Melville ("Call me Nielsen."), Edgar Allan Poe ("Take Mister Spock from out my set, and Captain Kirk from off my floor. Quoth the ratings 'Nevermore.' "), Joyce Kilmer ("I think that I shall never see a share much larger than 73.") and even Allen Ginsberg ("I have seen the best shows of my generation destroyed by poor time slots, starving for an audience, dragging themselves through pre-emption after pre-emption.

David Poyer is a retired naval officer, and most of the 34 thrillers that he's written draw on his experience serving in the waters of the Atlantic, Arctic, Pacific, Caribbean and Persian Gulf. So it was inevitable that at some point he'd take on the whale of all tales, "Moby Dick. " But try as Poyer might, he couldn't figure out how to write the sequel to Herman Melville's great American novel. Then one day, while the 63-year-old Poyer was teaching a creative writing course at Pennsylvania's Wilkes University, the solution came to him in a flash: "When I'm brainstorming with students, my brain doubles its IQ after a short period of time from my usually reptilian torpor at home," the 63-year-old Poyer said in a telephone interview.

(1819-1891) was born into a once-prominent New York family, that later found themselves impoverished. He tried several occupations, including clerking at a bank and teaching, before taking to a life at sea. At various times he worked as a harpooner and lived among cannibals.In his lifetime he had only a small following and supported his family during the second half of his life as a farmer and then as a customs inspector. It wasn't until some 30 years after his death that he was recognized as a great American writer.

Today in history: Nov. 14In 1851, Herman Melville's novel "Moby Dick" was first published in the United States.In 1881, Charles J. Guiteau went on trial for assassinating President Garfield. Guiteau was convicted and hanged the following year.In 1889, inspired by Jules Verne, New York World reporter Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) set out to travel around the world in fewer than 80 days. She succeeded, making the trip in 72 days.In 1922, the British Broadcasting Corporation began its domestic radio service.

(1819-1891) was born into a once-prominent New York family, that later found themselves impoverished. He tried several occupations, including clerking at a bank and teaching, before taking to a life at sea. At various times he worked as a harpooner and lived among cannibals.In his lifetime he had only a small following and supported his family during the second half of his life as a farmer and then as a customs inspector. It wasn't until some 30 years after his death that he was recognized as a great American writer.

By STANLEY TRACHTENBERG and STANLEY TRACHTENBERG,SPECIAL TO THE SUN | December 15, 1996

"Herman Melville: A Biography, Volume I, 1819-1851," by Hershel Parker. Johns Hopkins University Press. 941 pages. $39.95 Herman Melville is one of those major literary figures who is no longer read, only studied. The same fate seems likely to overtake Hershel Parker's monumental biography.Is there anything left to say about this difficult, obscure, ultimately philosophical writer who began with adventure tales of the South Seas (his editor called him "the Defoe of the ocean") and ended with such sardonic works as "The Confidence Man" '' or the moral ambiguity of "Billy Budd"?

"An odd act of literary liposuction" is how Daniel Zalewski describes in the December Lingua Franca what HarperCollins editor Hershel Parker performed on Herman Melville's arcane 1852 novel "Pierre, or The Ambiguities," which is coming soon to a mall near you.One 19th-century review was headlined "Herman Melville Crazy." HarperCollins decided the wordy novel needed to be made more accessible, leading to Mr. Parker's excision of an episode.The episode is the narrator's sudden, belated announcement, two-thirds of the way into the novel, that Pierre has a literary career, one that is, in Mr. Zalewski's words, "suspiciously similar to Melville's own."

A ratings tale: Ask not to whom the shares goTelevision ratings are a recurring theme in American literature.There was Herman Melville ("Call me Nielsen."), Edgar Allan Poe ("Take Mister Spock from out my set, and Captain Kirk from off my floor. Quoth the ratings 'Nevermore.' "), Joyce Kilmer ("I think that I shall never see a share much larger than 73.") and even Allen Ginsberg ("I have seen the best shows of my generation destroyed by poor time slots, starving for an audience, dragging themselves through pre-emption after pre-emption.

Thomas Clifton Mann , 87, former U.S. ambassador to Mexico and El Salvador, died Saturday in Austin, Texas.Irene Seiberling Harrison, 108, whose father founded Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., died Thursday. In 1898, she pulled the switch that signaled the start of her father's company in Akron, Ohio.Victor Stello Jr., 64, a nuclear power regulator who played a key role in the response to the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pa., died of cancer Friday at his home in Potomac.

It's easier being green, Danner saysIt has become much easier in recent years to be conscientious about recycling. Just ask Blythe Danner, the actress who is starring in the Manhattan Theater Club production of "Sylvia."Wednesday night, she told guests at the Environmental Action Coalition's awards dinner in Manhattan what it had been like to recycle 25 years ago. "I used to get on a bus when I was doing 'Butterflies Are Free' and take the garbage downtown to a recycling center," she said.